Fifty Two Pickup
by Drucilla
Summary: [Wild Cards Series] A series of vignettes featuring the Aces, Jokers, and nats of the Wild Cards series.


**Demise**   
James Spector, former CPA, hated himself with a passion that was nigh unto holy. 

He'd started out as a nobody, overshadowed by his only friend in the popularity gauntlet of high school. He'd grown into the most boring job possible (or so he thought), and failed miserably at that. His one defining moment had come with the Wild Card, when he had drawn the Black Queen, a sure and painful death. At the time he'd almost welcomed it; there had never been anything particularly special about his life, perhaps the after-life would be better.

He would never get a chance to find out. That bastard Tachyon and his damned experiments had brought him back. As if to add insult to injury, with his return had come a curse: that the memory of his death would be carried with him forever, both physical and mental. The body-wracking shakes, the bone-wrenching aches, the sweating and bleeding and screams. The mental anguish of feeling his body shut down, feeling his body failing all around him. It could only be held at bay if he fed it to someone else, which usually ended up killing them. 

James Spector had turned to the one occupation left open to the walking dead like him: assassin. 

He sighed, took a long drag on the cigarette, stomped it out and kept walking down the streets of New York. All around him the human detritus of life, beggars who were nat and Joker alike, stepped out of his way. They knew him by sight if not by reputation, and a man who looked as much in harmony with death as he did was not welcome among those who clung so tenuously to life. Hell, no one wanted to get near him, as though his Black Queen was still contagious. Not that he could really blame them… he, too, had heard the rumors of a new strain of the Wild Card going around. But for him it didn't really matter. 

A drug addict, further gone than usual or he wouldn't have latched onto Spector, punched him in the stomach. Spector doubled over, more with shock than from any real pain.

"Wallet, cash, keys. Now." To his credit, the man was really trying to sound intimidating. But it just didn't work when he was so obviously suffering from withdrawl, and probably half-starved as well. Spector was in a generous mood, God knew why. 

"Get out of here, kid," for the junkie couldn't have been more than sixteen years old, "Get out of here before you get turned into another statistic."

"You hard of hearing or something? I said give me your goddamned money!" 

Something was dripping onto Spector's shoes. He looked down to find that he was bleeding from the knife wound, the knife currently sticking out of his lower stomach. Hmm. That should have hurt more… maybe it was just too cold. He pulled the knife out. "Look, punk, even if I had any money, I wouldn't be giving it to you after you stuck me with this." He brandished the knife at the kid, whose eyes were widening as he realized just what he'd gotten into. 

"Hey… Hey, man, I didn't mean…" the kid stepped back, but it was far, far too late for that. Spector killed for as little reason as sheer annoyance, and having one of his better shirts ripped open for no better reason than so a junkie could get some drug money was definitely on his pet peeves list. He grabbed the kid by the front of the shirt.

"Smile," he gritted as the pain belatedly shot up through his stomach. "It's the last day of the rest of your life."

His eyes locked with the junkies. The Black Queen flowed from body to body, shattering the kid's bones and liquefying his internal organs. Spector even felt a little guilty as he was doing it… but it probably didn't matter anyway. The kid was probably already dying of some stupid disease, AIDS, syphilis (which was making a comeback no matter what the doctors said), pneumonia. Nearly everyone on this stretch of street was.

Spector shoved his hands further into his pockets and walked on down the street, unmolested, suddenly angry with himself. Now he'd have to kill someone with money, and it was going to be even harder to find someone who would stand still long enough. Oh well. That was life.

Or unlife, as it was in his case.


End file.
